Institute of Archaeology

Feeding Stonehenge

The Stonehenge Riverside Project, which
undertook major excavations at the henge monument of Durrington Walls and
elsewhere in the Stonehenge World Heritage site between 2004 and 2009, has led
to further research to explore the lives of the people of Stonehenge.

The Feeding Stonehenge project is examining
the huge assemblage of faunal remains from the excavations, using isotopic and
other analyses to unravel the history of the domestic animals whose remains
were found at Durrington Walls and other sites (Albarella, Evans, Montgomery,
Viner). By tracing the lives of the
animals, we can track the movements of the people themselves.

Preliminary results indicate that some of the
domestic animals arrived in southern England from as far away as Scotland,
opening up new questions about identity, political organisation and religious
belief in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Britain.

Other analysts are working on the ceramic
assemblage, to discover what was cooked in the pottery by analysing lipid
residues (Craig, Cleal). This gives us a
real insight into the diet of these prehistoric people. Lithic analysis shows how people made and
used material culture in this period around the arrival of metal in the British
Isles (Chan).

This project is coming to
an end in 2013, and the results will be published in a series of scientific
papers and monographs in the coming years